President Muhammadu Buhari has been urged to bestow a national honour on the first military Head of State and Coammander-in-Chief of the Nigerian Armed Forces, the late Major-General Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi.
The Deputy Leader, Ohafia Legislative Council, Hon Kalu Mba-Nwoke, stated this following Buhari’s declaration of June 12 as the country’s Democracy Day in honour of the late Chief MKO Abiola, the winner of the annulled June 12, 1993 presidential election.
He recalled that the late general, who died in the July 29, 1966 military coup, led the United Nation’s forces in the Congo Democratic Republic, and later became the first indigenous General Officer Commanding the Nigerian Army.
Mba-Nwoke said such gesture would console the igbo over their loss of Aguiyi-Ironsi just as the veneration of June 12 has healed the wounds inflicted on Abiola’s Yoruba kinsmen and his supporters across the nation.
Speaking further, Mba-Nwoke added that bestowing such a national honour on Ironsi would also complement the Reintegration, Reconciliation, and Reconstruction policy embarked upon by former Head of State, General Yakubu Gowan for the igbo at the end of the war.
The deputy-leader used the forum to commend the President for the recent approval of payment of entitlements and gratuities to police officers, who served on the Biafran side during the Nigeria Civil War.
The councilor representing Ohafor Ward in the council appealed to the president to give additional attention to his drive to address security and economic challenges in the country.
He stressed that regardless of the nation’s political, economic, tribal, and religious diversities, the President remained its father, advising Nigerians to criticise him objectively, constructively and with due respect for the office.